15. CHAPTER XV
(continued)

And here Margaret interrupted.

"Order, order, Miss Schlegel!" said the reader of the paper. "You
are here, I understand, to advise me in the interests of the
Society for the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or
Natural Beauty. I cannot have you speaking out of your role. It
makes my poor head go round, and I think you forget that I am
very ill."

"Your head won't go round if only you'll listen to my argument,"
said Margaret. "Why not give him the money itself? You're
supposed to have about thirty thousand a year."

"Have I? I thought I had a million."

"Wasn't a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled
that. Still, it doesn't matter. Whatever you've got, I order you
to give as many poor men as you can three hundred a year each."

"But that would be pauperising them," said an earnest girl, who
liked the Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at
times.

"Not if you gave them so much. A big windfall would not pauperise
a man. It is these little driblets, distributed among too many,
that do the harm. Money's educational. It's far more educational
than the things it buys." There was a protest. "In a sense,"
added Margaret, but the protest continued. "Well, isn't the most
civilized thing going, the man who has learnt to wear his income
properly?"

"Exactly what your Mr. Basts won't do."

"Give them a chance. Give them money. Don't dole them out
poetry-books and railway-tickets like babies. Give them the
wherewithal to buy these things. When your Socialism comes it may
be different, and we may think in terms of commodities instead of
cash. Till it comes give people cash, for it is the warp of
civilisation, whatever the woof may be. The imagination ought to
play upon money and realise it vividly, for it's the--the second
most important thing in the world. It is so slurred over and
hushed up, there is so little clear thinking--oh, political
economy, of course, but so few of us think clearly about our own
private incomes, and admit that independent thoughts are in nine
cases out of ten the result of independent means. Money: give Mr.
Bast money, and don't bother about his ideals. He'll pick up
those for himself.